Originally from: lina
                        
--- John Youles <...> wrote:

FRESH CALLS FOR FOOT AND MOUTH INQUIRY

09:00 – 17 October 2003

Fresh calls were made for a full public inquiry
into the 2001 foot and mouth
disaster last night after it emerged that European
penalties imposed over the
Government's mishandling of the affair could top £1
billion.

The WMN revealed this week that the European
Commission is considering capping
the UK's compensation claim for the slaughter of
livestock at just £250 million
– barely one-quarter of the £950 million claim
submitted by ministers.

The Commission is understood to be deeply unhappy
about the controversial
contiguous cull policy which led to the slaughter of
millions of healthy
animals. Auditors are also said to be dismayed by
the failure of ministers to
keep control over costs, with livestock valuations
spiralling ever higher as the
crisis went on.

But sources in Brussels last night suggested that
the penalty imposed on the UK
could climb higher still.

The Commission is also considering a claim from the
UK for a further £700
million towards the costs of livestock disposal and
the cleansing and
disinfection of farms. Although auditors have yet to
make a formal
recommendation to the Commission, well-placed
sources suggest that the final
payment is likely to be no more than £350 million.

In this case auditors are said to be unhappy with
the huge discrepancy between
the cost of disinfecting farms in the UK and that in
Holland and France, which
also suffered outbreaks of foot and mouth in 2001.
They are also alarmed by cost
differences within the UK. The average cost of farm
disinfection in the UK was
around £30,000. But in some cases it topped more
than £100,000 as Government
officials ordered concrete farmyards to be dug up
and complex milking machinery
to be dismantled and rebuilt.

South West Euro-MP Neil Parish said the latest
revelations underlined the full
scale of the Government's errors.

Mr Parish, Conservative agriculture spokesman in the
European Parliament, added:
"It is a dreadful state of affairs. The Commission
is clearly not satisfied with
the way the Government handled things and I am not
surprised. Unfortunately it
looks as if the British taxpayer is going to be out
of pocket to the tune of £1
billion as a result."

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural
Affairs has acknowledged that the
European audit is proving "rigorous and vigorous"
but denies that money will be
withheld because of the contiguous cull policy.

But Shadow Rural Affairs Secretary David Lidington
said he would be challenging
the Government over the revelations.

He said: "I shall certainly be putting down
questions to Margaret Beckett about
this. Ministers should hang their heads in shame
because it looks as though
their incompetence is going to land British
taxpayers with a far bigger bill
than expected. That money, which the UK could have
expected, will have to be
found from other budgets, whether it be health,
schools or the police."

Graham Booth, South West Euro-MP for the UK
Independence Party, said the
concerns in Brussels reinforced calls for a public
inquiry.

"It is not too late for a public inquiry into why we
ignored the sound advice
from previous outbreaks of foot and mouth," he said.
"Now Europe is coming back
to us and saying that because of the way the
Government handled things we are
going to suffer to the tune of £1 billion."

The European Commission said no date had yet been
fixed for the final settlement
of the UK's claims.